Dioxins are known to be a class of highly toxic and persistent environmental contaminants. Among them the toxicity of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) has been the most intensively studied, and it has been classified as a human carcinogenic substance by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Although the mechanism of carcinogenesis by TCDD is unclear, it is now consid...

In Japan, the largest source of dioxin is solid waste incineration plants. Because workers employed at these plants handle fly ash and slag contaminated by dioxins, they can take dioxins into the body during work and their health may be adversely effected. This paper describes the dioxin exposure concentration, daily dioxin intake and blood dioxin level in workers employed at municipal incinera...

The contribution of environmental biomonitoring with lichens to assess human exposure to dioxins was the main purpose of this work. For that, polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDD/F) were measured in 66 lichen sampling points. The obtained information significantly improved the basic knowledge on the environmental exposure to dioxins through distinction between effective control areas from areas ...

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a transcription factor belonging to the basic helix-loop-helix/PER-ARNT-SIM family. It is activated by a variety of ligands, such as environmental contaminants like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or dioxins, but also by naturally occurring compounds and endogenous ligands. Binding of the ligand leads to dimerization of the AhR with aryl hydrocarbon recep...

Determination of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) in fly ash and cinders collected from nine municipal incinerators in Japan was made. The concentrations of PCDDs and PCDFs in this study were generally in the same range as those in Europe and North America. However, the rather different congener composition compared with those published already...

This article reviews the state of the science regarding the health effects of polybrominated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PBDDs) and dibenzofurans (PBDFs). While thousands of articles have been published on the health effects of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin and related polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDDs) and dibenzofurans (PCDFs), little is know about the brominated and mixed chloro/bromo homol...

The Ah receptor (AhR), a bHLH/PAS transcription factor, mediates dioxin toxicity in the immune system, skin, testis and liver. Toxic phenomena are associated with altered cell proliferation or differentiation, but signaling pathways of AhR in cell cycle regulation are poorly understood. Here we show that AhR induces the p27(Kip1) cyclin/cdk inhibitor by altering Kip1 transcription in a direct m...

Extruded polystyrene (XPS) is often treated with hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) as fire retardant (FR). Because of its aliphatic structure, HBCD is not suspected to cause formation of polybrominated dioxins upon combustion. Precursors of polybrominated dioxins, namely bromophenols, were detected during tubular furnace combustion experiments of FR-XPS in combination with sorptive enrichment on po...